I'm so happy, 'cause today I found my friends..

..they're in my head...

Apparently, somebody at the New York Times recently looked at a map of
South America and discovered the mysterious country of Bolivia--that's
the only way that I can explain their sudden interest (something like
three long articles in under three weeks!)

Here's the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/americas/03lithium.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Zane talks about the article here:
http://audacityofhops.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-hope-glenn-sees-this.html

He's right--it's easy to understand Bolivian resource nationalism--oil
and gas companies don't exactly have a history of holding up their end
of the bargain on (a) protecting the environment, or (b) returning
profits to the people to whom these resources belong. And that doesn't
just go for the developing world. One need not look any further than
Alaska (okay, that's pretty far, too, but you get what I mean) to see
how well BP is taking care of _our_ oil infrastructure:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5626067

For what it's worth, the Uyuni Salt flats is one of the dustiest,
dirtiest, poorest places I've ever been, and although it's been
developing something of a tourist infrastructure, it's not hard to
imagine why the locals would view lithium with hope.

If nothing else, they would get to sing that awesome Nirvana song a lot...
"I'm so ugly, but that's okay, 'cause so are you."

That said, the Uyuni Salt flats and the surrounding areas are also the
most surreal and strikingly beautiful places I've ever been. I would
hate to see them get torn up for mining, at least before I get to go
back a couple more times. On the other hand, on a global scale,
strip-mining the high-altitude dessert of Uyuni would probably be a lot
less damaging than, say, cutting down the Brazilian rain forest to grow
cane sugar for ethanol. So I suppose one could make a case for it on an
environmental dimension.

In terms of a natural resource curse-type angle, this could presumably
be undesirable. However, because Bolivia's other major export (other
than cocaine, of course) is natural gas (and there are a lot of other
mineral exports as well), as natural resource extractive economies go,
this might not be such a bad idea, economically. Petroleum-based
exports might be a good complement to a mineral that's used in batteries
for electric cars. One goes up, the other goes down. Maybe.

But I guess the endshot of this all is, if you haven't made it down to
Uyuni yet, go this year. Because, in the words of the venerable Warren
Miller, "If you don't, you'll just be one year older when you do."
Also, because the salt flats may be an industrial wasteland. And they
might not be making that Salvietti papaya soda anymore.

So, you should really go. And bring me back some Salvietti.

And check out the Salvietti web page at:
http://www.salvietti.com/en/4.htm